Your iPhone can't natively rotate its wallpaper on a schedule — but Apple's built-in Shortcuts app can do it for you. Below is the whole setup: first the one-tap version, then the fully automatic version. It takes about five minutes.

Step 1 — Install the free Shortcut

Our shortcut fetches a fresh photo of a city where it's currently happy hour and sets it as your wallpaper. Tap the button below on your iPhone:

＋ Add Shortcut to iPhone

Opens in the Shortcuts app · iOS 16+ · Free

Tap Add Shortcut above and confirm in the Shortcuts app.
In Shortcuts, long-press the shortcut → Share → Add to Home Screen so you have a one-tap icon.

Step 2 — Tap to set a wallpaper

Tap the icon on your Home Screen any time you want a change. In a second or two, your lock screen becomes a fresh photo of a city where it's 5 PM right now. That's all there is to the manual version.

Step 3 — Make it fully automatic

To have iOS swap the wallpaper every hour with no tapping, you'll create 24 quick automations — one per hour. It sounds like a lot, but each takes about 15 seconds once you find the rhythm.

Open Shortcuts and tap the Automation tab at the bottom.
Tap + → New Automation → Time of Day.
Set the time to 12:00 AM, leave it on Daily, choose Run Immediately, and turn Notify When Run off. Tap Next.
Pick the It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere shortcut. The automation is saved and you're returned to the list.
Repeat for every hour — 1:00 AM, 2:00 AM… through 11:00 PM. That's 24 total.

Tip: After the first two or three, the flow becomes automatic and flies by. Most people finish all 24 in under five minutes.

Troubleshooting

If a run seems to fail or you see an "extension" error, it's almost always the Run Immediately and Notify When Run settings — make sure the first is on and the second is off, so iOS doesn't wait for a confirmation the background task can't give. If your wallpaper occasionally doesn't change, that's normal iOS background behavior; the next hourly run will catch up.

Frequently asked

Is this free? ▼

Completely. The shortcut and the wallpapers are free, with no account or subscription.

Will it drain my battery or data? ▼

Barely. Each run downloads a single compressed image (a few hundred kilobytes) and only runs when scheduled or tapped — nothing runs in the background between times.

Do I really need 24 automations? ▼

iOS only lets each Time-of-Day automation fire once a day, so one per hour is how you get hourly updates. You can also make fewer (say, every 3 hours) if you prefer less frequent changes.

Does it work on Android? ▼

Yes, with a different (also free) method — see our Android auto-wallpaper guide.

Ready to try it?

See where it's 5 o'clock right now, then add the shortcut and set your first wallpaper.

See where it's 5 PM → All guides